CHANNEL YOUR CHALLENGES

You can channel your challenges to create the life you want.

People who know me as a businessman see someone who takes joy in creating value and opportunity—helping others grow their businesses and themselves. But my core passion comes from a deeper place. I do what I do for a bigger purpose. Those who get to know me are often surprised to learn I come from very humble beginnings.

My desire to inspire began with a childhood that was brutal and broken: a world of violence, abuse, homelessness, and circumstances that felt impossible to survive. My parents, once hardworking medical professionals and veterans, traded stability for a life tied to drug production and dangerous people. Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s we moved up and down the California coast, living amid lawlessness and fear. Over time our lives descended into a daily nightmare—no steady home, motel to motel, and eventually the streets.

My sister MJ and I experienced neglect and abuse at the hands of our parents and the people who surrounded them. We learned to stand in food pantry lines, scavenge restaurant dumpsters, and survive on the scraps others discarded. Homelessness became our method of living. I remember the piles of donated clothes in church auditoriums—worn shoes and hand-me-downs that felt like treasure simply because they were something I could put on my back. Those small mercies were everything.

We learned to survive the way you learn a language: by immersion. Years of life-threatening situations became the backdrop of my mind. My sister eventually found some stability in a foster placement; I cycled through more than twenty foster homes and numerous shelters. Childhood, as most kids know it, was stolen by adult choices and dangers that no child should face. The foster system taught me a hard truth early: my life was up to me. From a very young age I learned to hustle, to leverage whatever system could help me, and to refuse dependence on pity.

Work became my path out. I took every odd job I could find—mowing lawns, delivering papers, knocking on doors, any honest work that paid. I told myself, over and over, Work. Work. Work. If I didn’t take care of myself mentally, physically, and financially, I realized I would forfeit the power to shape a life of my own. The trauma I endured became fuel rather than fuel for despair. I channeled it into self-discipline: fitness, learning, and relentless effort. I made my body and mind strong because strength was a ticket to autonomy.

The library became my refuge. Books let me travel beyond motels and alleyways; they opened my mind to possibility. 

My bike and cassette tapes were my escape—riding until my legs burned and my imagination soared. Those rides kept me physically fit, clear-headed, and away from trouble. I cultivated relationships with people who could help me earn money and learn skills. Rain or shine, I rode to part-time jobs, to school, to sports practices, and to the next opportunity.

Sports and mentors played a pivotal role. Coaches saw my grit and gave me structure, accountability, and access to resources I could not otherwise have reached. I tested myself in track, football, and baseball not merely for trophies but to understand limits and push past them. 

By fifteen, after completing an independent living program, I became emancipated during my sophomore year of high school. Suddenly I was furnishing an apartment, buying a car, and juggling jobs and school on my own. I kept a tight schedule because control over my days was control over my future.

Then everything changed in an instant: while riding my bike I was struck head‑on by a car. The accident left me with severe head trauma, a broken neck, shattered vertebrae, dislocated knees, and life‑threatening lacerations. After weeks of hospital care and over a year of rehabilitation, I had to let go of competitive sports and relearn how to be myself. Recovery was long and humbling. I reshaped my mind and body with the support of friends, coaches, and a community that refused to let me fail. I returned to school, took on construction labor, learned how to frame houses, and attended classes at Arizona State University West while continuing rehabilitation. I learned patience and persistence—how to make incremental gains that accumulate into transformation.

Work remained the constant through every season. I started at the towel counter of a health club and rose to sales; I worked at an amusement park and earned a supervisory role. I sought out successful people to be around their energy and learn from their habits. In time, I opened my first fitness studio—Ultimate Fitness—self‑financed while juggling three jobs, early‑morning trash routes, and client training. A local paper featured my door‑to‑door approach to helping older professionals regain vitality, and doors I never expected to open did: executives, doctors, attorneys, and community leaders became clients because I offered more than workouts—I delivered transformation through music, humor, and individualized care.

Working alongside accomplished people was my master’s degree in entrepreneurship. After several years of success and sale of my businesses, I relocated  to Los Angeles to pursue product placement—bridging fitness brands and entertainment production. I hustled at trade shows to get top brands on my roster, cultivated relationships with major production studios, product placement agencies, talent agencies, and top publishers of fitness content, and created the partnerships with major fitness brands and media houses. Through all this, I built a boutique agency that placed health and fitness products in TV, film, and print, earning hundreds of millions of impressions for dozens of top brands, —much of which is still in circulation today. Alongside this, I launched and partnered in ventures across manufacturing, wearable tech, content production, and more.

Over three decades I’ve helped countless entrepreneurs and companies optimize operations, relaunch brands, and scale profitable teams. My consultancy and ventures —now embodied in The Value Company—operate at the center of high-value healthcare markets, connecting Americans to pharmacy services, virtual care, at‑home MedTech, diagnostics, and lab‑as‑a‑service. Through subsidiaries like Divvy Health and ValueRx we advance a philosophy that resonates deeply with me: self care is the new healthcare. Our model prioritizes efficient, data-driven, personalized care and affordable access, shifting costs toward high-impact digital health and preventive ecosystems.

Life beyond work is my anchor: I’m married to the love of my life, Carey, who leads a thriving fitness method for women. We live with gratitude under a humble roof and raise four beautiful children. My greatest aim now is to carve out more time with family in the sun, access to mountains and by waterways that pour from high elevations.

I remain honored to serve others through my work, to innovate in healthcare, and to collaborate with mentors and professionals committed to creating opportunity and purpose for others.

We hear the phrase, “self-made”., No one is truly self-made. We are all help-made. I am help-made by those who believed in me, challenged me, and held me to higher standards. If you have pushed through life’s hardest chapters, you too are help-made. Recognize the people, the small mercies, and the opportunities that shaped you—and then pay that forward.

My life proves a simple truth: adversity, when channeled with discipline and purpose, becomes the raw material for growth. If you are willing to work—honestly, persistently, and with a heart to serve—you can transform pain into power and scarcity into service. Make a measurable difference, work hard, and create opportunity for others. Channel your challenges to create the life you want.

CHANNEL YOUR CHALLENGES TO CREATE THE LIFE YOU WANT.  

MY MISSION: Make a measurable difference, work hard, and create opportunity for others.. 

“EASE…IS A GREATER THREAT TO PROGRESS THAN HARDSHIP..” —Denzel Washington